


Another Sort of Beast

by Aesoleucian



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:55:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who's to say the Beast wasn't someone else the whole time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Sort of Beast

"We need the money." He doesn't meet her eyes. "It can't be so bad, can it?"

"He's rich because he's really good at killing things, Papa." Belle has hidden her face behind a book on sheep diseases so he won't see the tears welling up, hoping he won't hear them in her voice.

"We're in constant danger of starving," he says. It clearly costs him a lot to admit it—he thinks she doesn't know he's been taking half portions for over a year now. All the time she's been sneaking food onto his plate as well.

_My papa has gone! she thought. He has lost himself trying to get money for us!_

_There was a knock on the door._

"Ma belle," says her future husband, Gaston, with a bow. He adds that deep self-satisfied chuckle that makes her want to strangle him, only she can't, she's too small, too weak, too woman to do anything for her father except sell herself. She forces a smile. "How good it is to see you, Monsieur. Please make our humble home yours." His muddy boots go onto her desk, where _Diseases of the Sheep_ becomes markedly more soggy. Belle pities the mother who had to deal with this man-child for fifteen years.

It strikes her that she is now that mother, and not just for fifteen years.

_She made her desperate way to a tall spiky castle in the forest, where she found her father imprisoned by a great and awful beast, who made her a deal: if she stayed to be his housekeeper he would let her father go._

_What could she do but agree?_

The first week is exactly as awful as she expected. He only eats half-raw meat from animals he's killed himself, as far as she can tell, and every other night he invites his friends over to get slobbering drunk and kick over the furniture. Every morning she puts it all upright again, and starts baking loaves of bread for his lunch.

_The beast didn't really expect her to do much—she dusted his mantels and mopped a few floors, but it seemed like he was just trying to keep her busy. There appeared to be a horde of invisible servants in the castle doing most of the work of a housekeeper. She didn't even have to make her own dinner. If she had been allowed to leave and visit her father, it would have been perfect._

It doesn't take long before he starts getting angry more and more often. His meat is too charred, the bread is undercooked, where did the scuff marks on this chair come from? When she points out that he's the one who put them there he slaps her. The charm is gone. She is his wife, and he owns her. 

She is no longer allowed to borrow books because too many have ended up torn, or muddy, or cracked and black in the fireplace.

_The best part of the beast's castle was its enormous library, three stories of books and ladders shining with polished brass. She taught him to read, there, and he finally started to become civilized. He even began to eat his soup with a spoon._

Nights are the worst part. He is huge, he crushes her, and he doesn't stop. He can often be heard to say, the relatively safe hours of daytime, that if he doesn't have a son within a year he'll eat a barrel of mud.

When, sated, he goes to sleep, she curls up and begins to cry silently.

_Despite everything, the beast still wouldn't let her leave to see her father. So in the middle of the night she ran into the forest, convinced she could find her way home. When she was injured falling from her horse, beset by wolves, he appeared like moonlit salvation to bear wounds that would have been hers. To carry her to safety._

It is easy to run away while her husband is out hunting (three times a week, like clockwork). The swelling in her belly is hardly noticeable as of yet, so she packs two pounds of cured venison, half a loaf of leftover bread, and a large hunk of well-aged cheese. She walks into the forest, the opposite direction from him, straining her eyes for a castle's towers piercing the sky. Eventually when it becomes dark she curls up around her pack in a tree, finally feeling safe.

In the morning he finds her. She is no longer allowed outside the house, which serves to hide the bruises and slow-healing cuts.

_While the beast was recovering from the wounds he had gotten saving her, she wandered into a wing she'd never seen before. On the walls were portraits of a handsome young man, and in the furthest room a shining, floating rose._

_He found her, but he wasn't angry. He told her that he had been cursed with beast form until someone who truly loved him gave him a kiss. She did so willingly, and he transformed in her arms into a beautiful human prince. The two of them married and lived happily ~~ever after~~._

Her son is beautiful, energetic, and filled with curiosity. She cannot bring herself to hate the baby, despite the torture she went through for his sake; she names him Gauvin and calls him cherie. He will learn to love knowledge and kindness. She is allowed to sit in the sun with him, teaching him to play with little worms and beetles, to be gentle with the neighbors' cat. When little Gauvin is older, she knows, his father will teach him to be cruel, to kick cats and crush beetles. A thrill of unease runs through her whenever her husband holds the boy up with the only genuine smile she's ever seen him wear.

He hardly beats her at all any more, as if he is permanently in one of those coveted good moods. Has her beast turned human at last?

_They had a beautiful son and daughter, who grew up wise and courageous. The son became a defender of the weak, and the daughter a powerful sorceress who used her powers for good. One day a terrible dragon came into the land, burning villages and eating the peasants who depended on the king and queen for protection. The young prince set off to fight it._

Little Gauvin grows until his healthy lungs are large and his cries are loud. She doesn't mind, he usually quiets quickly enough, but it irritates her husband to no end. At first he cuffs her when she can't keep Gauvin quiet (that's fine, it barely hurts compared to--), but one day when no amount of shushing will quiet her son he hits poor little Gauvin as well. Belle's son fall silent. She vows never to have another child, no matter what she will bear for it.

_When their son didn't come back, and didn't come back, the king and queen begged his sister to tell them what had happened. She used her powers of second sight and saw that the young prince had been slain and eaten by the dragon._

_The kingdom fell into mourning._

He is stricken, at first, to know that he has killed his own son. Good. Let him suffer a tiny part of what she has suffered.

It begins again, the blows and the pain at night. She takes it quietly, knowing she will not, _cannot,_ give him another child. The town's herbalist helps her secretly, and though she is no longer able to borrow books she imagines a world where her husband is someone wonderful, and her son is still alive.

Gradually, it stops working.

_The princess set out to avenge her brother after the year of mourning had passed, although her parents begged her not to. They heard no news of her for a long time, but months later they found out that she, too, had been killed by the dragon. It then became obvious that the princess had been keeping the kingdom alive by magic in the face of a great drought. Crops withered and forests burned, and the king slowly pined away from sadness._

_Queen Belle was left sitting alone on a throne of frigid glass, hoping only that it would shatter and let her die, for she had not the courage to end her own life._

The second time she becomes pregnant, the child is a girl. She leaves the baby to Gaston's care, whatever he may be able to give.


End file.
